


fatt femslash 2019

by cynical_optimist



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, FatT Femslash Week 2019
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 07:06:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19329580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cynical_optimist/pseuds/cynical_optimist
Summary: day 1: sunrise - helladaireA sleepless night; a conversation delayed.





	fatt femslash 2019

**Author's Note:**

> day 1: sunrise - helladaire  
>  A sleepless night; a conversation delayed. Set vaguely in SIH 32.

Adaire’s been finding it difficult to sleep lately.

This is not usually an issue; she’s always been able to rest when she needed. It’s a good quality for a thief to have— almost as good as the ability to rise at the drop of a hat. These abilities have served her well for years. They didn’t matter so much in Aubade; but then, there was never really anything to lose sleep over, there.

So it’s uncomfortable, to say the least, when she finds herself laying awake in her tent, hours after she finished her watch. The sky is starting to brighten ever so slightly through the gaps in the cloth. She closes her eyes, and then opens them, and doesn’t sigh. She does sit up, though, pushing out of her bedroll, dressing, and crawling out of the tent.

Around her, the camp is dark and still. No one has emerged from their tent yet— they’re likely not even awake yet. She shouldn’t be, not with a full day of travel ahead of her. But she tried for hours to sleep, to quiet her mind and quell the growing pit of dread in her stomach. It’s never like this, not really. Even if she cared enough about something to worry like this— to  _ fear _ like this— there was always something to distract her, something more important or more alluring.

But there’s no distracting from this. There’s nothing more important.

As Adaire emerges from her tent, she glances toward the edge of their temporary campsite— and Hella meets her eye. Something hot and buzzing in Adaire’s chest quiets. She makes her way over, steps silent.

“Hey,” Hella murmurs when she’s close, shifting to make room for Adaire on the rock she’s sitting on. “It’s not your watch.”

Adaire shrugs. She’d handed over the watch to Throndir before going to her tent, heard Hella take over not too long ago. “I know,” she replies, and glances at the space Hella’s left. After a moment’s hesitation, she takes it. There isn’t much room on the rock, and the two of them are pressed together shoulder to hip. Adaire would mind, if she were sitting with anyone else.

But— this is Hella.

For a very long moment, they sit there in silence. Hella is warm, and solid, and a tiny, naive, foolish part of Adaire wants to wrap herself around her until they are inseparable, until nothing can take Hella away. It’s a ridiculous notion, of course, and both of them would hate it, but— 

It’s always  _ but _ , these days.

“Are you okay, Adaire?” Hella asks, after the silence has stretched long and thin between them. 

Adaire sighs. Takes a breath, then sighs again. After a moment, she shrugs, and knows that Hella can feel it where their shoulders are pressed together. “I don’t think I’m the one we should be worried about,” she replies finally.

“There’s a lot of things to be worried about,” Hella says.

“Yeah.”

“But—” Hella pauses, and Adaire turns her face to look at her. She’s drawn her lower lip into her mouth, brow furrowed. When she meets Adaire’s gaze, her eyes are earnest and sad. “That doesn’t mean that we— that I— can’t worry about you, too.”

Adaire huffs, turning back to face the camp. She can still feel Hella’s eyes on the side of her face, and that fact chills and warms her in turns. “I know,” she says. The sky is continuing to brighten, the first edges of light peeking over the ruined horizon.

Hella’s breath catches as though she’s about to speak again, but she doesn’t.

After a few more moments of silence, Adaire sighs again. “After we defeat this thing,” she begins, and Hella shifts beside her. “After we kill it— and get your body.”

“Yeah?” Hella says— quiet, prompting.

Adaire takes in a breath, lets it out. “We’ll talk then,” she finishes. “Really talk. About everything.”

Beside her, Hella swallows. “Okay,” she says, and doesn’t voice any of the fears clawing out of that awful dread-pit in Adaire’s stomach— that they won’t defeat the Advocate, that one or both of them will die in the process, that the Heat and the Dark will claim Hella before they can make her a new body, that they won’t be able to make a new body at all. That all this will be for nothing, ultimately. “After, then.”

“Great,” Adaire nods. The sky shifts in colour above them, bright and gorgeous and yet unclaimed by the end of the world. The birds foolish or brave enough to stay in these flame-ravaged lands are beginning to sing; that, too, is beautiful. Adaire closes her eyes, lets her head fall onto Hella’s shoulder. She won’t sleep now, not when they’ll be departing again soon, not in this uncomfortable position. _But_ —

She will breathe in, and then out, and feel the warm presence of Hella along her side, her heartbeat subtle in her ear, and finally,  _ finally _ , she might rest.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on twitter @spiderangst or tumblr @boxesfullofthoughts!


End file.
